A few months back I bougt a small coin at auction in my coin club (Norwegian Numismatic Society). The old coin tag that followed the coin indentified it as french merovingian about AD 750, and an reference to M.h. Basel Nr. 7, p. 11, No. 268. I have no idea what this refers to. So I ask for some help to identify the coins origin; ruler, city, age ... anything. Please se pictures. Weight: 2,49 grams (silver?) Size: 19,88 x 16,91 mm. Any help will be useful. Thank you, Kjetil
It refers to a book on the coins and that is the attribution. The ruler was Childeric III, the last Merovingian king. And yes - silver.
Merovinginian coins are fairly scarce. I don't own one, but then again haven't really tried. I just got Medieval Coins Vol 1 covering these if you want another reference number.
Great help! Thank you GDJMSP, and yes medoraman, if you have any reference number, or place of mintage, from Medieval Coins Vol 1, I would like to have it. Thanks again.
Closest I have is Medieval European Coinage, vol 1, 615, mint possibly Poitiers. The obverse is hard and the reverse cross not exactly the same.
MEC is woefully inadequate for Merovingian coins. Unless it is a perfect match, I wouldn't cite it at all. Doug - do you know what that Basel reference is referring to? The ANS Library Catalog wasn't of any help to me this time.
MEC 615 is too light, listed at 1.22g Does M.h. Basel refer to the Basel collection sale of 1949 or to an auction firm out of Basel? I don't find it in MEC or Roberts, but neither is a specialized reference.
I didn't think it was a perfect match, but if you look at the picture of 615, I do think it could be the same design. The OP's coin is hard to decipher what was going on, but I thought 615 could have been the design, and helped decipher the legends and central device. I saw that the cross in 615 was a true cross and not like the OP coin. Thanks for the advice on MEC though. I have just received the book and it is very helpful to know its Merovingian section is light. Any other downfalls to the book? I was looking for a 5th-10th century reference, (since they are hard to get references for), and all I had was on Visigoths and Pseudo Roman coinage.
Since it is listed as No. 7 I would suspect seventh sale of an auction firm. Since many firms started after WWII, this would place the starting date of the firm about 1946, with auctions twice a year. Would the Basel sale be large enough to have 7 sessions? I am not familiar with it, maybe it was that large of a sale.
Well, I thought it referred to a collection and book on that collection by Basel. But everything I found yesterday was in German and I'm quite weak with German. But your question made me dig some more. My old standby for medieval, Grierson, has helped shed some light in one of his books. Luckily that book is available on Google - http://books.google.com/books?id=Wp...v=onepage&q="Merovingian coins" Basel&f=false - start on page 81. Apparently the MMAG Basel sale of 1949 was huge ! It even occasioned supplements to the standard references on Merovingian coinage. The catalog of that sale it seems is a reference unto itself. So it seems I was correct in a way in that - M.h. Basel Nr. 7, p. 11, No. 268 - is an attribution, but it refers to the Basel sale catalog. Basel is a city in Switzerland and MMAG is a firm (auction house) which holds auctions there. Their auctions are referenced constantly by the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Fitzwilliam owns many of the pieces from their auctions. You can use links I have previoulsy provided in the Resources section to view their collections. One last thing for Kjetil - from what I have been able to find out you should feel quite blessed to own that piece as they very rarely are offered for sale.
Great post Doug. I never thought a sale would be so huge as to have 7 sessions. It much have been one fantastic event. I will have to look for those sales catalogs.
First; thank you for digging up the information. The coin comes from an old norwegian collection, and I will try to fint out when the main part of this collection was formed (it may be late 1940's). Secondly; Yes, I feel lucky. I have no other coins from this period, but i got curious when this coin came up for auction. It looked like Cinderella among all the other bright and nice coins, and since I like cinderellas I took the chance. (And I should not tell what I paid for it - )
Just a small update: The reference is to Münzhandlung Basel Auction Sale 7 I'm told (a pre war auction sale), but according to the Münzkabinett Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, it's not a match for lot 268 (or 269). It's also to heavy to be a denari. So the quest for identification continues.
